Origin

A horde was originally a tribe or troop of nomads, such as the Tartars led by Genghis Khan, who migrated from place to place in search of new pasture or plunder. The word comes from Polish horda, which is itself from Turkish ordu ‘royal camp’, from which the language name Urdu (late 18th century) also derives. The word is often confused with hoard (Old English) a Germanic word for ‘a secret stock or store’.